For Harry Warshaw, My Father (1917-2008)

I. The Note to the Mourners

Those attending will have to forgive Jay, his son, for not being here today. His father’s passing has been more than he can bear and he is not in the best of health.

Hopefully, he’ll be able to make a visit at some time in the not too distant future.

He thanks you all for coming.

II. The Commemorative Poem to My Parents

To Be Read At Old Montefiore Cemetery, St. Albans Queens, NY at the funeral of Harry Warshaw (born-Oct. 17, 1917 died-Apr. 29, 2008) to be held on the morning of Sunday May 4th, 2008.

For My Mother and Father

They’re together now. Harry and Evelyn.

I see them young and beautiful and healthy

As they were when in the first full bloom of their true love.

She welcomes him into the Garden

Where they embrace and rest a while and rise again

In the new day under a New Sun

Where Love is stronger than Death.

Love, that reverential bridge connecting

Life to Life.
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Written by Jay Warshaw
Tues. Apr. 29, 2008
Boca Raton, FL

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III. The Tribute to My Father

Harry passed away after a long courageous battle against many illnesses. He would have been 91 years old in October.

Born in the Bronx, brought up in “battling” Bensonhurst Brooklyn, he was a fighter to the end.

He had been an athlete--an inveterate handball player in particular, frequenting the legendary rough-and-tumble handball courts of Brighton Beach Brooklyn -- a soldier, an airman, a combat veteran of the Second World War, flying many missions in defense of his country--you could say he was 'The Last of the Flying Warshawskys'.

And he was a “soldier” too of another kind in the sometimes harrowing knock-down drag-out contests of New York’s Garment Industry and making a living in Manhattan in general.

While he worked hard he tried to find time for others. He knew how important it was to spend time with children. He managed and coached Little League Baseball. He often joined in the games of the kids on the street and taught them how to throw and catch a baseball or a football the best way he knew.

He never articulated it in so many words but by virtue of his example he believed your time was the most valuable thing you could give others. Ever the good trooper, in his long prime he rarely missed a family function, not because it was expected he attend, but because he enjoyed the company of his family and friends, no matter the celebration, whether the occasions were births, bar-mitzvahs, bat-mitzvahs or marriages.

And when it was time to bury the dead he was there to pay his respects and comfort the bereaved

He loved and honored his parents. He loved his entire family; his country and the Jewish People.

He loved life.

He loved good jokes, even though sometimes he might've told a bad one.

He did more good than bad.

He was human. He was one of us. He leaves an honorable name.

-- written by Jay Warshaw

Sat. May 3rd, 2008

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HAPPY PASSOVER -- SHALOM

NUKE THE GARBAGE…!

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an area of debris in the North Pacific Gyre.

The center of the North Pacific Gyre is relatively stationary region of the Pacific Ocean (the area it occupies is often referred to as the horse latitudes) and the circular rotation around it draws waste material in. This has led to the accumulation of flotsam and other debris in huge floating 'clouds' of waste which have taken on informal names, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the Plastic soup, the Eastern Garbage Patch or the Pacific Trash Vortex. While historically this debris has biodegraded, the gyre is now accumulating vast quantities of plastic and marine debris. Rather than biodegrading, plastic photodegrades, disintegrating in the ocean into smaller and smaller pieces. These pieces, still polymers, eventually become individual molecules, which are still not easily digested.[1] Some plastics photodegrade into other pollutants. The floating particles also resemble zooplankton, which can lead to them being consumed by jellyfish, thus entering the ocean food chain. In samples taken from the gyre in 2001, the mass of plastic exceeded that of zooplankton (the dominant animal life in the area) by a factor of six. Many of these long-lasting pieces end up in the stomachs of marine birds and animals.[2]

For several years ocean researcher Charles Moore has been investigating a concentration of floating plastic debris in the North Pacific Gyre. He has reported concentrations of plastics on the order of 3,340,000 pieces/km² with a mean mass of 5.1kg/km² collected using a manta trawl with a rectangular opening of 0.9x0.15m² at the surface. Trawls at depths of 10m found less than half, consisting primarily of monofilament line fouled with diatoms and other plankton.[3]

The size estimate of the patch varies depending on the source, with some claiming that it's twice as large as the continental United States.[4] Researcher Dr Marcus Eriksen believes the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is in fact two massive areas of swirling rubbish that are linked. Eriksen says the gyre stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the coast of California, across the Northern Pacific to near the coast of Japan[5].

Occasionally, shifts in the ocean currents release flotsam lost from cargo ships into the currents around the North Pacific Gyre, leading to predictable patterns of garbage washing up on the shores around the outskirts of the gyre. The most famous was the loss of approximately 80,000 Nike sneakers and boots from the ship Hansa Carrier in 1990: the currents of the gyre distributed the shoes around the shores of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii over the following three years. Similar cargo spills have involved 29,000-30,000 plastic yellow ducks, blue turtles and green frogs bathtub toys in 1992 and hockey equipment in 1994. These events have become a major source of data on global-scale ocean currents. Various institutions have asked the public to report the landfall locations of the objects (trainers, rubber ducks, etc.) that wash up as a method of tracking surface waters' response to the deeper ocean currents.[6] [7]

The gyre is discussed in Alan Weisman's The World Without Us as an example of the near-indestructibility of discarded plastic.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]

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